Pollitt has it right:
As the nation passes the thirty-third anniversary of Roe, it is hard to find anyone who will say a good word in public for abortion rights, let alone for abortion itself. Abortion has become a bit like flag-burning–something that offends all right-thinking people but needs to be legal for reasons of abstract principle (“choice”). Unwanted pregnancy has become like, I don’t know, smoking crack: the mark of a weak, undisciplined person of the lower orders.
Somewhere (probably as the Dems lost control of the federal government), abortion became the public policy no-no — we’ll keep it in the books on principle, just as long as nobody actually has to exercise that right. Meanwhile, the Santorum wing of the Republican party sets the rules of the game.
Molly set up a questionairre for the pro-life folks out there and has yet to have any of them answered by anyone who calls themselves “pro-life.” Consider this your call to duty.
Since many of the people commenting on that other post are referring to “murder” in one form or another, here are some questions for those of you who claim to believe that abortion is murder, and that all women who receive them are “murdering their babies.”
1) Should women who abort get life sentences in prison and/or the death penalty?
2) If a woman’s husband knows she is aborting, should he be charged as an accessory to murder?
3) How about her friends who know?
4) Should abortion doctors receive life sentences in prison and/or the death penalty?
5) If a woman smokes during her pregnancy and the fetus dies as a result, should she be charged with murder?
6) If her husband knew she was a smoker and could kill the fetus, is he criminally negligent?
7) If a woman eats unhealthily during pregnancy and the fetus dies, should she be charged with negligent homicide?
8) If the husband knew, should he, too, be charged?
9) If a woman has a serious medical condition that would almost always lead to the death of a fetus, but gets pregnant anyway, should she be criminally liable if the fetus dies?
10) If her husband knew of this condition, should he, too, be criminally liable?
11) If a company manufactures a product which lights a fire in a fertility clinic, destroying 1500 frozen embryos, should they be liable for mass murder?
12) If an electric company has a power failure which cuts power to a fertility clinic, thawing embryos and rendering them unusable, should they be liable for mass murder?
13) If a pregnant woman reports to her doctor that she is smoking during her pregnancy, should her doctor be mandated to report it to the appropriate agency for dealing with child abuse?
14) If a woman has cancer and her chemotherapy kills a fetus, should she be given a life sentence and/or sentenced to die?
15) If her doctor was aware of her pregnancy, should he be charged as an accessory to murder?
16) Should children who are disabled be allowed to sue a parent for any negligent conduct during pregnancy that may have caused their disability — for instance, smoking or consuming alcoholic beverages?
17) Should a person with 15 frozen embryos in storage be required to carry each embryo as soon as possible?
18) If I had 15 embryos in storage, should I be able to claim them as dependents on my tax paperwork?
19) If a government agency determined that a woman was being neglectful to her fetus during her pregnancy, should she be forced by the Department of Children and Families to care for the child and/or have it forcefully removed?
20) Should one in three American women be imprisoned or sentenced to death?
Punishing doctors is far easier than stepping into this rhetorical and legal quagmire. If abortion is truly murder, women and their accomplices should also be charged. Consistency, people — words have consequences.
While you’re at it, Amanda details how our government continues to remind us that mandatory pregnancy really is mandatory by moving to take away insurance coverage of preventative cancer testing and contraception.